Dutch set to create EU’s first intelligent city

Amsterdam has initiated the first phase of Amsterdam Smart City programme, becoming the first city in the EU to deploy intelligent technology, such as smart grids, in its electricity distribution system.

The Amsterdam Smart City will use a smart electric grid, smart metres, smart-building technologies and electric vehicles to reduce energy consumption in housing, commercial properties, public buildings and areas, and transportation.

Accenture, which has been chosen to implement this initiative, will also manage the integration of the smart-grid technology and the analysis and use of data.

The company will work with the Amsterdam Innovation Motor, a city affiliated agency that establishes public and private-sector cooperation, to develop, implement, manage and assess each of the phases and projects of the Amsterdam Smart City programme.

The first phase of the Amsterdam Smart City’s low-carbon projects includes: A ship-to-the-grid project, by which commercial vessels and river cruisers will be connected to electric grid when docked; Implementation of smart metres and in-home feedback displays to provide home owners with information to help manage their energy consumption; A smart building at Accenture’s Amsterdam office at the ITO Tower, where intelligent technology will collect, monitor and analyse the building’s programming and utility data to identify energy consumption efficiencies and lower the building’s carbon footprint.

As per the information available, the municipality, energy outfits, and private companies are expected to invest more than €1.1 billion in Amsterdam’s Smart City programmes over the next three years. That includes a €300 million investment by local electricity network operator Alliander in smart grid technology.

Also part of the plan: up to €200 million to be spent by local housing cooperatives on boosting household energy efficiency, and €300 million from companies including Philips and Dutch utility Nuon to be invested in other energy-efficient technologies.

A call for upgrading the grid

UK energy analyst Inenco has warned that Britain's archaic National Grid will not be able to cope with the push towards renewable energy without massive new investment by the government. It has emphasised on the fact that the UK's electricity infrastructure is so outdated and expensive that the renewables push towards wind farms and other forms of microgeneration will place an impossible strain on the network.

It is being indicated that wholesale electricity prices will be forced up by 20 percent when the European Union's carbon trading scheme becomes law.

Inenco forecasts that energy costs will rise by a fifth are double the estimate of the Government, which says prices may go up by 10pc.

Under the EU carbon trading scheme, heavy users of electricity will be forced to bid for permits to produce extra carbon dioxide above their capped limit, as reported by telegraph.co.uk. Many permits are still free at the moment, but a limited UK permit trading trial raised £54m for the Treasury last year and they will be traded fully on the open markets by the end of 2012. The current price for one allowance, which represents about 2MWh of electricity, is between €20 (£19) and €25.

Ian Parrett, energy analyst at Inenco, said it was likely that increases in wholesale electricity prices would be passed on to consumers.

"The key issue is that price-based measures tend to affect the least well-off the hardest," he said. "We need to make sure that the costs aren't just borne by those who have no alternative."

Finnish utilities focus on deploying AMM solutions

Landis+Gyr has signed Advanced Metering Management (AMM) contracts with five Finnish utilities for installation of smart meter solutions, enabling 145,000 new consumers to manage energy better. The contracts were signed last year.

Building on early success in 2008 with Finnish utilities Jyväskylän Energia, Tampereen Sähkölaitos and Vaasan Sähköverkko Oy, Landis+Gyr has also signed contracts with two additional utilities Satapirkan Sähkö and Kemin Sähkö.

There are three million households in Finland and one in five is currently equipped with smart meters.

The Finnish government regulation that is planned to become effective at the beginning of February calls on utilities to deploy smart meters in 80 percent of homes by end 2013. The mandate is similar to laws being enacted in other Nordic countries.

"Finland is in the execution phase of smart meter deployment, as utilities move quickly to meet government mandates," said Ad van der Meys, Landis+Gyr's Executive VP EMEA region.

Satapirkan Sähkö, a consortium of nine different utility companies, will invest in smart meter solutions for eight of their members. Landis+Gyr is working with other manufacturers to tailor a solution to meet the specific demands of Satapirkan Sähkö.

The firm highlighted a report from VaasaETT (in October last year), as per which energy savings via use of smart meters and in-house displays show average savings of 10.3 percent. Another 2008 paper, from the European Commission, estimates seven percent energy savings for households and 10 percent for businesses.

Echelon extends its project winning spree in Europe

Sustaining its project winning spree, Echelon Corporation has bagged a smart metering project in France. The development follows recent contracts in Germany and Denmark.

The company shared that the Group of Electricity Distributors in France (GAELD), a consortium of electricity distributors, has chosen Echelon's Networked Energy Services (NES) System for up to 90,000 homes.

The project, awarded to Echelon partner Alter Way, is expected to begin within the next few months and to be completed by 2013.

One of the utilities in the GAELD consortium, Régie d'électricité de Loos, is allowing homeowners to sell back solar produced electricity to the utility. They are doing so using the ability of NES meters to measure the amount of electricity produced separately from the energy consumed, as opposed to simple "net metering" in which the details of production versus consumption are lost, making this the first instance of Echelon's meter to be used in an alternative energy application in France.

Echelon's NES advanced metering infrastructure consists of advanced electronic electricity meters, accessed via a web services based network operating system over an IP networking infrastructure. Multiple NES meters can share a single IP connection through the use of Echelon's power line networking technology.

According to the company, this decreases the per-point connection cost, enabling the system to easily and cost-effectively incorporate new wide area networking technologies over the life of the system.